pH Issues: RO and More - Help!

[OmegaOmega]

I've noticed a couple of my fish becoming really sick - white gills and cloudiness around the eyes. I immediately tested the water and here are my following params:

SW: 1.026
pH: 8.7
Nitrates: 5ppm (I had just done a 25% water change)
Nitrates: 0

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I panicked when I saw how high my pH was so I thought I'd add more RO water, and when I tested it with my pH meter, I saw that my RO water out of the system was 9.8 - is that normal? I haven't come across anything on here that indicates that's the normal pH of RO water.

I checked it with a TDS meter also, just to see if there were any other issues with the water, but it came out to 002 - so pretty clean.

I immediately mixed a glass of baking soda/RO water to get the water in the glass down to 8.1 - and dripped it into the tank. 12 ounces seemed to bring the overall tank down to 8.3 (relatively safe) but I'm wondering if I need to do anything else?

Could the high pH cause issues with the fish? If so, and lowering it helps, how long before I'd start seeing them 'turn-around' - or is there a point of no return?

Corals and CUC look perfectly fine.

 

[Bifferwine]

Are you sure your pH meter is calibrated properly? How often do you re-calibrate it with calibration fluid? If your water was 9.8...well that's just unbelieveable to me. Did you try checking the pH with a normal dropper test kit? Adding the baking soda may have also shot up your alkalinity -- which is also not good.

 

[Smitty]

Wow! I've never heard of that before...water is supposed to have a ph of 7.0. Make sure your ro unit filters are clean of any debris.

 

[OmegaOmega]

Are you sure your pH meter is calibrated properly? How often do you re-calibrate it with calibration fluid? If your water was 9.8...well that's just unbelieveable to me. Did you try checking the pH with a normal dropper test kit? Adding the baking soda may have also shot up your alkalinity -- which is also not good.

I used both the RKE probe and a brand new Hanna probe I bought - both register over 9.5 pH for both regular tap water and the RO water.

How do I manage keeping alk low?

 

[tankedchemist]

Biff's right, your probes are not calibrated.
if your tap water had that pH, you couldn't drink it. Get calibration fluid-- you need two, one at pH 10.0 and one at pH 7.0, and follow the instructions in your probe manuals for calibration.

Also, what kind of probes are these? if it's a calomel electrode, it may need regenerating.

In the meantime, I'd be going to a pet store and getting an API high range pH drip test. Use that until you calibrate and maintain your probes.

 

[Bifferwine]

You can get calibration fluid off of Ebay for really cheap.

 

[OmegaOmega]

I just tested with strips - one glass from tap one glass from RO, both were above 8.8 color marker.

I drank some of the water and it's rather tasty.

I have/had three probes. Ones the Digital Aquatics probe which I calibrated using the two step method you mentioned above at 77* F and the other is a Milwaukee pH600 which is new and came calibrated and tested.

 

[OmegaOmega]

Tanked - btw - I was in Eugene last week and visited the new AquaSerene - holy crap that place is so nice now!

 

[bjohanson1234]

+1 everyone

Water should be a pH of 7

Also, just because the probe is new, doesnt meen that it is reading right. In fact, you need to calibrate the probe when you install it. The probe sends a signal to the meter, then the meter inturprets the signal to a number. In order to ensure that it is accurate, the meter needs to be calibrated

 

[tankedchemist]

Tanked - btw - I was in Eugene last week and visited the new AquaSerene - holy crap that place is so nice now!

strips can be notoriously inaccurate. Your proteins start to get hydrolyzed at pH 8.8 so I really, really doubt the accuracy of those readings.

AquaSerene looks nice, and their fish are a decent quality-- so long as you get in after a shipment has been put out, at least. their corals are :pooh: in my experience. Also, I don't like their hours because I'm ALWAYS working during them. The fish store that closed down in March was closer to work, and had awesomer corals. AquaSerene is really just a gardening/ pond store pretending to be a fish store imo. :)

what were you doing up in these parts?